Former Bowie State Star Comes Home to Terps

Dalonte Hill and Michael Beasley, in the college basketball community, will always be linked. It was Hill, who grew up in Landover and played for Bowie State, who recruited Beasley to play one season at Kansas State.

And what a season it was. Beasley, who also grew up in Prince George's County, was one of the top players in the country as a freshman at Kansas State. Before heading to the NBA in 2008, Beasley played for USA U-19 team at the world championships in Serbia in 2007 on a team that included future NBA players Stephen Curry and Jonny Flynn. (This reporter interviewed Beasley in Serbia that summer).

Hill, considered one of the top recruiters in the country, was the associate head coach at Kansas State last season. Now Hill is coming home. A former player at Laurel Baptist Academy (which is now closed), Hill will join the staff of new coach Mark Turgeon at the University of Maryland, according to several media outlets, including The Baltimore Sun.

Greg Goings, the sports information director at Bowie State, told Patch on Tuesday afternoon that Hill played in 10 games, with nine starts, for Bowie State during the 2001-02 season and averaged 9.8 points per game. Hill battled knee problems in college.

His coach at Bowie State was Luke D'Alessio, now an assistant under former Maryland assistant Jimmy Patsos at Loyola of Baltimore. D'Alessio attended the press conference last week when Bowie native . Lonergan takes over for Karl Hobbs, who was an assistant coach on that U.S. team with Beasley that played in Serbia.

Hill ended his prep playing career at The Newport School in Montgomery County. He began his playing career in college at Division I Charlotte and then transferred to Bowie State, a Division II program. Since he transferred to a lower level he was eligible to play right away and did not have to sit out one season.

As a senior for Bowie State he averaged 5.7 rebounds per game as the Bulldogs went 19-9 overall. He returned to Charlotte and got his bachelor's degree in sociology.

Hill was later an assistant coach at Charlotte and among the players he recruited to the 49ers was Eddie Basden, a standout at in Greenbelt. Basden was the 2005 Conference USA player of the year and later played in the NBA during the 2005-06 season with the Chicago Bulls and in March joined a team in Greece.

As a true freshman at Charlotte in 1997-98 he averaged 4.2 points and 2.9 rebounds in 26 games as the team went 20-11 overall.

Prior to joining the college ranks, Hill served two years as the head coach of the AAU's DC Assault. It is that connection to the AAU scene that Turgeon must feel can give the Terps an edge on attracting some of the top blue-chip talent in the Baltimore-Washington region.

Editor's note: The story was corrected, quoting Greg Goings as SID at Bowie State.